Something I wrote for a US history course last year. Some might find it interesting .....
Religion, for better or for worse, has always been a central theme in American history. From the time of Christopher Columbus to the present, religion has been the impetus for discovery, social reform, lawmaking as well as prejudice, war, suppressions and fanaticism. One of the primary catalysts for Europeans to settle in America was religion. Following their consciences and spiritual understandings, Europeans fled from the oppressive kingdoms of their motherlands. Often these nations were practical "theocracies" -- Kings and Queens using the pretext of religion for their persecutions and policies. America was a sanctuary for people seeking the freedom to worship as they saw fit.
By the time of the American Revolutionary war, religion was still a vital part of people's everyday lives. After the first government of the United States failed under the Articles of Confederation, the question of religion was an absorbing topic for the founders of the Constitution. What they wrote, said and thought about religion remains vitally important today in any political or social discussion of religion's role in government. There are those who would like to sanction time for school prayer, teach a certain type of understanding of the biblical book of Genesis as factual science, and post the Hebrew Ten Commandments in courtrooms and public areas as a testament to their faith. On the other hand, some would like to go so far as to take the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance and even talk of taxing religious institutions. The gap between these two ideological camps could not be greater.
To settle these political disputes one must use the Constitution and the Founding Father's views as a touchstone for public policy today. How did the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights view the separation of church and state? How did their personal views of religion affect the founding of this government? Is the United States a "Christian nation" as many fundamentalists adamantly assert? To find the answers to these questions we will look at various source documents from the time of the founding of the United States, as well as commentary on those documents. Such a study is as timely as ever.
Unquestionably, the most important document in United States history is the Constitution along with its amendments. It is the bedrock upon which our government is built. Laws and policies are found to be either "constitutional" or "unconstitutional." That being said, it should be noted that the words "God", "Bible", "Jesus" and "Christian" are conspicuous only by their total absence from this document. In fact, the only reference to religion at all in the Constitution before it's amendments is in Article VI where it states regarding all Senators, Representatives and all other government officials that they "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." (Unger 124).
This was no minor statement. Indeed, eleven of the original thirteen states had religious tests for public office. (Kramnick 43). All these tests involved to what amounted to a confession of the Christian religion. This "no religious test" law was monumental in its departure from theistic inclinations in government. To be sure, there was some discussion from the Virginia delegates to change the wording of this clause to "no other religious test shall ever be required than a belief in the one only true God, who is the rewarder of the good, and the punisher of the evil." This initiative, brought forth in May 1788, was rejected. (32).
Obviously, the framers of the Constitution did not view their government as being religious or "Christian" in any sense whatsoever. Their only mention of religion in the Constitution was to protect the rights of possible government officials. The logical conclusion one would reach, then, is that the framers did not feel it necessary to hold to a certain creed or religious persuasion to be a good, moral and upright representative of the people. (This "no religious test" clause applied only to the federal government. State religious tests for elected officials continued till 1961 when Maryland was the last to forbid them) (43).
After the Constitution was formulated in Philadelphia it faced the uphill battle of winning the people's favor in at least nine of the thirteen states for ratification. Controversies over many details of the document raged. James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton were the chief promoters for the Constitution when they wrote the Federalist papers. Just like the Constitution, the Federalist Papers make no mention of God at all. (31). Of course, the Constitution was eventually ratified. But, not without certain amendments to it, including the first ten -- The Bill of Rights.
It was the need for a bill of rights supplementing the Constitution that occupied much of the writing of Thomas Jefferson while he was ambassador to France. In a letter to James Madison dated December 20th, 1787, Jefferson reviewed what he thought of the proposed Constitution. He states many favorable things about the document, such as the division of government into three branches, dividing Congress into two houses and other facets, which we now know as law. But, after stating these positive features he goes on to say, "I will now tell you what I do not like. First, the omission of a bill of rights, providing clearly, and without the aid of sophism, for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies...(etc)" (Jefferson 437). So fundamental and critical was freedom of religion, that Jefferson stated it first among the freedoms he thought essential to the new government.
The framers finally met the call for a bill of rights. Perhaps somewhat due to Jefferson's influence, the first article of that document states in part, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof." (Unger 125). This article essentially declared two things. There would be free exercise of religion and no state religion would be established. This was a somewhat novel concept. Governments since the dawn of civilization have been supported by and supporters of particular religious groups. Even in eighteenth century Europe, most nations had state-sponsored religions. England had its Anglican Church of England, for instance. Even among the individual states, religion was prescribed. (Eventually, the states followed the national government?s pattern in not sponsoring religion)
So, this was a radical departure from the governmental norm. This new government would not only be an experiment in democracy, but in the secular state as well. Doubtless the framers knew well the injustices performed in the name of religion, which caused so many to come to America in the first place. They sought to not become what their ancestors had once fled.
All the same, the wording of the First Amendment is open to interpretation. Does the "establishment of religion" mean that there should be no governmental interaction with religion at all, or that no one particular religion is favored? I think it is interesting to note how James Madison, probably the most influential figure upon the Constitution, interpreted the law in his presidency. Acting in this capacity in 1811, Madison vetoed a grant of five acres of public land to a Baptist church because it "comprises a principle and precedent for the appropriation of funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies, contrary to the Constitution which declares that 'Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment.'" (Brant 234). One wonders what Madison would say about the current controversies over "faith-based initiatives" and vouchers for religious schooling.
Thomas Jefferson was not involved in the formulation of the Constitution as he was in France at the time. Nevertheless, he is one of the most respected figures in early American history and his opinion can also be used to get into the minds of the Constitutional delegates. He wrote to the Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association on January 1st, 1802 (writing as US President) that "religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship." Commenting on the First Amendment he stated that such a law build "a wall of separation between Church and State." (Jefferson 332). Notice that he speaks of a person's faith being a matter between man and "his God." Saying thus, he acknowledges that there is a religious plurality, which must be respected.
A final piece of evidence that the United States is not a "Christian nation", as some Evangelicals insist, is a very forthright statement made in the Treaty of Tripoli, which was signed by President John Adams on June 10th, 1797. This treaty was, in part, an assurance to the Muslim people of Tripoli that US ships would act peacefully near their harbors. Article 11 of the treaty reads:
"As the government of the Untied States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, -as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." (Miller 364-5).
Such clear words acknowledged by our second president help in further putting to rest the myth of America as a Christian nation. This, of course, does not mean that the United States is in any way opposed to Christianity or religion in general. The "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment guarantees full religious freedom for all. We have cherished these freedoms ever since.
Amazingly enough, we have the luck of history to thank for having such liberties. The framers of the Constitution were children of the eighteenth century Enlightenment -- arguably the high point of philosophical flowering regarding such things as religion, science and government. The Enlightenment was a time of great change when old assumptions about the natural world were shattered. Sir Isaac Newton showed that objects fall to earth due to the laws of nature, which could be understood mathematically. Before him, men such as Copernicus and Galileo overturned a heliocentric model of the solar system. The scientific method was being developed and the need for a God or gods to account for every event in life was seen as archaic. This was an enormous paradigm shift. If the physical world acted on it's own without divine intervention, does the human world also act without God's constant involvement? This was the next logical question to ask, and some were answering in the negative. Philosophers such as the Englishman David Hume and the Frenchman Voltaire made constant attacks on religious orthodoxy. Both felt that the Christian worldview was one based on superstition, error and contrivance. They saw God as a more remote being that created the world with its natural laws and let it alone. This belief came to be known as Deism.
So it was, as historian Paul Johnson put it, a "historical accident" that our Constitution was so liberal and secular in it's outlook. Johnson states that if the Constitution had been written in 1687 or 1887 it would have had a much more religious flavor, as those were much more religious times. The Constitution had been "drawn up at the height tide of 18th-century secularism, which was as yet unpolluted by the fanatical atheism and the bloody excesses of its culminating storm, the French Revolution." (Johnson 205). One wonders what this country would have been like if it were founded in an era which was not as freethinking as the one it developed from.
For some founding fathers, this freethinking involved an embracing of Deism as a belief system. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine were all, at some points in their lives, openly Deist. Let us look at Franklin's beliefs for a moment.
Benjamin Franklin wrote in his "Autobiography" the following passage regarding an incident which happened when he was fifteen, "Some books against deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of the sermons which had been preached at Boyle's Lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them. For the arguments of the deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough deist." (Fraklin 76).
Nonetheless, Franklin was not hostile to Christianity by any means, although he was skeptical of Christ's divinity or of the Bible's inspiration. Franklin viewed religion as a means of preserving virtue and promoting good behavior. Whether this involved the acceptance of a certain creed or belief in Christian orthodoxy was inconsequential to him. Still, he had a high regard for Jesus Christ, including him with Socrates as an example of humility for all. (105).
Thomas Jefferson's writings on religion and philosophy are also noteworthy. To some conservative Christians of the time he was the "Virginia Voltaire," alluding to the French philosopher who wrote extensively against Christianity. (Kramnick 95). Notice the following passage by the president of Yale College, Reverend Timothy Dwight, in denouncing the then Vice-President:
"Is it that our churches may become temples of reason, our Sabbath a decade, and our Psalms of praise Marseilles hymns? Is it that we may change our holy worship into a dance of Jacobian frenzy and that we may behold such a strupet personating a goddess on the alter of JEHOVAH? Is it that we may see the Bible cast into a bonfire?...Shall our sons become the disciples of Voltaire and the dragoons of Marat?" (89)
Such polemical propaganda surely is a testament to how some of the public viewed the opinions of Jefferson. If he considered the United States a "Christian nation" would such fanatical diatribes ever been made of the man? Certainly not. It is because of his secular stance toward government and his unorthodox views of the Bible that such words were said regarding him. And yet, he is considered one of the greatest American thinkers our country has ever known.
Probing further into the mind of Jefferson, we have a letter dated August 10th, 1787 addressed to Peter Carr. In this document, Jefferson gives advice to Carr on subjects to study in order to be an educated person. He writes of the need to learn Spanish, philosophy and the need to travel. The bulk of the letter, though, is spent discussing how one should examine religion. He writes to Carr, ?Your reason is now mature enough to examine [religion]. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias?shake off all the fears and servile prejudices?Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.? As a child of the Enlightenment, Jefferson promotes the use of rational thought and logic in examining religion. But, lest some may think that he took as a moral necessity the need to believe in a deity, notice these astonishing words, ?Question with all boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.? (Jefferson 431).
?Read the Bible? recommended Jefferson ?as you would read Livy or Tacitus.? Unlike fundamentalists in his day and ours, Jefferson insisted that the Bible was to be examined as any other great piece of literature ? critically and with care. He extolled Carr, ?Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you.? (432-3).
Such words by our nation?s third President would cause great consternation to those today that feel America is founded on a Christian premise or that belief in God is necessary for moral excellence. But, this opinion of Jefferson is a historical fact ? no matter how unsavory it is to some. Certainly, such bold willingness to face whatever human logic and reason concluded about nature and God was a factor in Jefferson?s influence on our nation?s history. Think, for a moment, what this country would have been like if George W. Bush or Pat Buchanan were one of the Founding Fathers and not Jefferson?
But, Jefferson did not view the Bible as a useless book. Later in his life he even went so far as to organize his own ?Bible? which was simply the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Writing about this endeavor to John Adams from his Monticello estate in 1813, he stated regarding Jesus, ?In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests?We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus.? Doing this Jefferson conceded, ?There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.? Jesus teachings in the Gospels would be ?as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill.? (631-2). Jefferson?s ?Bible? is devoid of any mention of a virgin birth, miracles, angels and demons. It ends with the burial of Jesus and says nothing of a resurrection.
Far and away, the most notorious of American Deists was Thomas Paine. A personal friend of Jefferson, Paine was one of the great propagandists of his time and one of the main proponents advocating independence from the British Empire. His pamphlet, ?Common Sense? was extremely influential in arousing revolutionary feelings in the colonies. Just as revolutionary were his religious views. His magnum opus in the arena of religious literature is his book, ?The Age of Reason.? Paine remarks:
?Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet, as if the way to God was not open to every man alike?Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.? (Paine 286).
The entire work is a polemic against the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. Paine denounces the doctrine of eternal torment and the trinity. He calls into question the historicity of many biblical accounts, and rails against many of the stories that he views as being unethical and mythical. The work ends with an explanation of what he believes: one God, an afterlife, and moral virtue. He notes the natural world as being abundant proof of God?s goodness and human nature as a call to divinity. For all these views, he was denounced as a heretic.
It would be a great distortion to say that the Deistic, non-Christian views of men like Franklin, Jefferson and Paine were the opinions of the majority of Americans at the time of our country?s founding. M. Stanton Evans, in his book "The Theme Is Freedom" reports that of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, nineteen were Episcopalians, eight Congregationalists, seven Presbyterians, two Roman Catholics, two Quakers, one Methodist and only one Deist. (Evans 272). How seriously these individuals took their religious views is open to question. Some, doubtless, were very firm in their beliefs. Others, possibly, were part of their denomination in name only, just as many are today.
On the whole, the American people were very religious, and by religious I mean Christian. Deism seems to have been the chosen course of a very small minority. If anything, the bold rationalism preached by Jefferson and Paine met a rise in traditional Christian thinking. On the heals of the publication of "The Age Of Reason" came the Second Great Awakening, which was a strong and determined rebuttal to the Deists and secularists. The college textbook, "American History -- A Survey" by Alan Brinkley sums it up well when it states, "Deism, Universalism, Unitarianism, and other 'rational' religions seemed more powerful than they actually were because for a time traditional evangelicals were confused and disorganized." (Brinkley 186). Christianity survived in America as it did the lions in Rome.
Even so, the revolutionary religious views of some of the principle members of the Founding Fathers left an indelible mark upon the laws of the United States. Were it not for the outspokenness and courageous stance of men like James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and others, this country's history might be very different, and the rights and civil liberties of millions of Americans, Christian and non-Christian, might not exist.
Bibliography
Brant, Irving. The Fourth President ? A Life of James Madison. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1970
Brinkley, Alan. American History ? A Survey. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.
Evans, M. Stanton. The Theme Is Freedom ? Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition. Washington DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc. 1994
Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1994.
Kramnick, Isaac, and R. Laurence Moore. The Godless Constitution ? The Case Against Religious Correctness. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.
Jefferson, Thomas. The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Ed. Adrienne Koch and William Peden. New York: Random House, 1972.
Johnson, Paul. A History of the American People. New York: Harper Collins, 1997.
Miller, Hunter ed. Treaties and other International Acts of the United States of America. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1931.
Paine, Thomas. The Selected Work of Tom Paine. Ed. Howard Fast. New York: Random House, 1945.
Unger, Irwin and Robert R. Tomes ed. American Issues ? A Primary Source Reader in United States History. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2002.
Bibliography
Brant, Irving. The Fourth President ? A Life of James Madison. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1970
Brinkley, Alan. American History ? A Survey. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.
Evans, M. Stanton. The Theme Is Freedom ? Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition. Washington DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc. 1994
Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1994.
Kramnick, Isaac, and R. Laurence Moore. The Godless Constitution ? The Case Against Religious Correctness. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.
Jefferson, Thomas. The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Ed. Adrienne Koch and William Peden. New York: Random House, 1972.
Johnson, Paul. A History of the American People. New York: Harper Collins, 1997.
Miller, Hunter ed. Treaties and other International Acts of the United States of America. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1931.
Paine, Thomas. The Selected Work of Tom Paine. Ed. Howard Fast. New York: Random House, 1945.
Unger, Irwin and Robert R. Tomes ed. American Issues ? A Primary Source Reader in United States History. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2002.